


Cozy In Here

by LananiA3O



Category: Batman: Arkham (Video Games)
Genre: 100 percent hurt, Batman: Arkham Knight AU, Body Horror, Gen, Horror, Major character death - Freeform, Mind Control, Read at Your Own Risk, downer ending, halloween content war 2018, not graphic but disturbing, seriously I'm not joking, zero comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 02:44:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16467194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LananiA3O/pseuds/LananiA3O
Summary: Following his unmasking by Scarecrow, Batman returns home, where Dick and Alfred are waiting for him, but not all is well in the Manor or with Bruce for that matter, and the night is about to take a dark turn.





	Cozy In Here

**Author's Note:**

> Day 2 of the batfam Halloween Content War 2k18 and a Batman: Arkham Knight AU.
> 
>  
> 
> **SERIOUS WARNING: Please, for the love of god, READ THE TAGS!!! They are there for a reason. I am not joking.**

 

He arrived at the Batcave just before sunrise, lulled in darkness and the slow rumbling of the dying engine. He would need to upgrade the car a little. A new paint job couldn’t hurt either. He put it on the mental checklist. The ever-growing, ever-changing mental checklist.

Then, there was the screeching of bats and the low hum of dozens of millions worth of electronic equipment that cast the cave in a cold, harsh glow of cerulean.

Then came the roar of the second engine, as Nightwing arrived on his motorcycle. As soon as he was out of his seat, the mask came off too.

“Bruce, thank God!” A pair of black and blue arms wrapped around him tightly, but he resisted the urge to react. He had a reputation to uphold after all. “I’m so glad you’re okay!” Dick Grayson’s face looked pale and worried, but also hopeful, in the blue glow. “After that speech you gave me in Otisburg… and Scarecrow’s fear gas—are you sure you’re going to be ok?”

“I’ll be fine, Dick.” He grimaced slightly at the sound of his own voice. Like he had swallowed ground glass. “Go upstairs. I’ll run a quick blood test to make sure Scarecrow’s toxin is fully neutralized and join you.”

“Alright. I’ll tell Alfred to make us both some pumpkin spice chai.” Nightwing bolted off into the direction of the stairs, then did a ridiculous 180 just as he reached the second flight. “What are you going to do about… you know… the crowd outside?”

Ah, the reporters. He had a few ideas about how to handle those, but for now, the most simple and unimaginative one would have to do.

“I’m going to let Thomas Elliot have what he wanted: the chance to be Bruce Wayne.”

Nightwing’s brow furrowed in concern. “There’re gonna be a lot of targets on Bruce Wayne’s back. He might not survive that…”

“I’ll handle it, Dick.” He didn’t even have to fake the mildly annoyed sigh underneath the words. Nightwing really could be a handful sometimes. “Now go upstairs. I’ll join you soon.”

This time, Nightwing thankfully relented. He waited until he had completely ascended the stairs and the Batcomputer indicated the opening and closing of entrance no. 1, then headed for the cabinet in the second alcove to the left of the massive supercomputer. The entire case and the door were two inches of titanium-reinforced steel, but he knew the codes and he had the finger prints and the right retinas. The door opened slowly, with a soft creak, revealing six shelves of various flasks and capsules, filled with everything from Bane’s Venom to Copperhead’s tetradotoxin. Crane’s concoctions alone took up one entire shelf, each labeled meticulously, with a second vial containing the antidote placed just behind each of them.

He really only needed just one of the vials from the safe, though. He retrieved the little flask and set it down carefully on top of the safe, then closed the door once more.

Next up was the costume. As much as it served its purpose of scaring the ever-living daylights out of every crook and criminal from Crest Hill to Blackgate, it was still pounds of suffocating leather and Kevlar and titanium-tipped whatever-the-old-Fox-had-called-it earlier. And it was drab. He slipped out of it quickly, put on the brightest clothes he could find—a true challenge with _that_ wardrobe—and transferred the vial into the right-hand side pocket of his pants.

The Batcomputer was still humming quietly when he returned to the main room. For a moment, he was tempted to log in and dive into the files, but that too would have to wait until later. Another item on the list.

***

“You should have seen Cobblepot’s face!” Dick’s bright voice rang through the manor with almost irritating clarity. It was coming from the den. “He honestly thought he was going to cap one of us.”

“He would have gotten you if I hadn’t arrived in time.”

That killed the smile on Dick Grayson’s face pretty quickly. Alfred stood by as stoically as ever, a face void of any personal investment. He’d have to change that.

“You always were great at killing a party, Bruce.”

He suppressed the urge to counter with some witty remark. He repressed the urge to snort, shrug, or shake his head. He was the Batman, after all. He had a reputation to uphold. At least for a little while longer.

The subliminally threatening whistle of a kettle sounded from the watch around Alfred’s wrist. A little remote kitchen timer he had presented to the old butler for his sixty-fifth birthday, just last year. He held up his hand as soon as Alfred turned to leave.

“Let me, Alfred.”

“Master Bruce?” The butler raised an eyebrow. “I hope you will forgive me for saying this, but we both know you are a disaster in the kitchen. I’ll go get it.”

What he wanted to say was a thinly veiled, colorful threat.  What he said instead was “I’m sure I can handle a kettle of water, Alfred.”

Alfred sighed and relented. He watched him sit down on the arm of the couch that was not currently occupied by the lounging fashion disaster that was Dick Grayson and headed for the kitchen.

He picked the three kitschiest, most cliché mugs he could find from the cupboards. One of them was covered in red and golden leaves; another said ‘Happy Halloween!’ in between a flock of cartoonish bats. Both had been picked by Dick. The third one, the one that looked blank but grew giant, bloody, vampire teeth when you filled it up with something hot, that one had been picked by Jason.

Ah, Jason. Those had been the days. Another thing to take care of. He put it on the list, too.

He fitted each mug with one bag of pumpkin spice chai, a good chug of hot water, a shot of milk, and a dash of sugar, and added just a teeny tiny bit of laughter to all but one. Then he returned to the den.

The tea smelled good. The fire, real fire, from the hearth, was warm. The den had been decorated blasphemically tastefully considering the season, but there was orange everywhere. Dick ‘Blue Is My Only Color’ Grayson looked more out of place than a hippo in a ballet show, but at least he was laughing. Laughter was good, laughter was important. Laughter was the spice of life.

He slid the two kitsch mugs over to the butler and the former sidekick, sank into the nearby armchair, and took a good sip.

It was excellent tea. It tasted like fall and mischief. It tasted like devilish grins and lightning in a bottle. It tasted like cozy blankets and soft kittens and every peaceful cliché under the sun.

Now he just needed them to drink it too.

“If I may sir, Alfred ventured carefully, “wasn’t it Master Todd who bought that mug for you?”

“Yes. It was.”

“Then perhaps we should set out to find him? You said he was still alive, right?”

“WHAT?!”

He winced. Damn the little bird could be annoyingly loud. He had met babies with better volume control.

“Jason is alive?!” Dick’s eyes had grown the size of saucers. “Damn it, Bruce, why didn’t you tell me? We need to find him... like... yesterday! Is he ok? Does he need help? Where do we start?”

He wanted to laugh, but Batman – did – not – laugh. He could do this. At least for a little while longer.

“Is that joy I hear in your voice, Dick?”

“Of course it is!” Dick sounded appalled that he had even dared suggesting that it wasn’t. “Jason. Is. Alive. We’ve been thinking he’s dead for years now. Of course I’m happy he’s alive!”

“Happier than when the two of you repainted the Batmobile that one time?”

That made Dick laugh. Good. This was the perfect moment. Cozy. Happy. Relaxed. Even Alfred was hardly suppressing a tiny grin.

He raised his mug. “Of course we’ll go find him, Dickie. To Jason!”

“To Jason!” Dick mirrored the gesture.

“To Master Todd!” Alfred agreed and took a sip of his tea.

Dick was still chuckling softly at the memory as he downed half his cup. Then it hit him.

He could see it in the way Dickie-boy’s eyes widened, in the way his fingers gripped the mug like his life depended on it. He could hear the subtle shift as the chuckle turned from a soft, rumbling sound produced in the back of his mouth and the top of his throat to an unstoppable, hysterical, beastly howl that clawed its way out of the depths of his lungs. He tried to lunge, but the seizures started just as expected, making him stumble onto and through the glass table between them, where he started writhing in pain on a bed of shards.

Alfred, dear old Alfred, looked on in horror for a split second, before his own breath hitched, forcing that same demonic sound from his mouth. Who knew the old codger could laugh so brightly? Who knew that wrinkled, yet annoyingly passive face could be so expressive, so lively! A shame really. Alfred could have been a _great_ comedian if only Bruce had let him.

In the back of his mind, in the very depth of his psyche, locked behind the heavy iron gates and surrounded by bloody, padded, rat-infested walls, Bruce was screaming.

Screaming for Dick to get up.

Screaming for Alfred to hold on.

Screaming to be let out, to have his body back.

Joker clicked his tongue. “Now, now, Brucie-boy, Alfred’s already gone.”

It was true. Alas, poor Alfie, the laughing poison had been too much for his dear old heart.

“But Dickie here,” he kicked the howling boy in the ribs once and watched him curl up into a tight ball. His smile was stretched wide in a grotesque grin, but his eyes were full of sheer terror. He gasped for breath, but the laughter wouldn’t let him. “Dickie’s still soldiering on pretty bravely. Let’s set a good example for him, shall we.”

He leaned back, took a few more sips from his tea—delicious, really!—and waited and watched and listened as the minutes passed and Dick’s laughter ebbed once more and finally died and Bruce’s screams intensified. It was good to know that even Batman could lose his cool.

“You know, Bats,” Joker finished his cup and twirled it idly around his finger. “It’s such a tragedy that neither Jason nor poor Nightfling here never knew how much you really loved them before I snuffed them out. I mean, technically Todders is still alive of course, but he’s really not his former self anymore, is he?”

The mournful wailing stopped. Instead, it was replaced by cold fury, as Bruce threatened every single horrible punishment he could onto Joker from the maximum security cell in his mind. At last, Joker laughed and to his surprise the deep raspy voice actually made for decent comedy. The age of serious, grim-dark brooder Bats was finally over.

“Oh Bats...” Joker shook this lantern-jawed head he had inherited nine months ago. He truly felt... reborn. “We really do bring out the best in each other! See, everything you just said to me gave me plenty of ideas! This time, we’re gonna do it right! This time we’re gonna let Robin know how much we care. I mean, after everything you just suggested doing, of course.”

The angry tirades stopped instantly, replaced with one word. _Tim._

“Yes, Tim, the little dork.” Joker jumped out of his seat and threw the cup into the fireplace where it shattered into dozens of pieces. “Now let’s go find the little bird. I’m finally getting cozy in here.”


End file.
